


Merit

by Zoya113



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Cleaning out drafts again, F/M, Fluff ?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24892744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: Paul finds a nice trick to ensure Emma is taking care of herself
Relationships: Emma Perkins/ Paul Matthews, Paul Matthews & Bill
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	Merit

**Author's Note:**

> This was another old draft ! U can tell bc of how minor a role Melissa has haha

“Holy shit. It’s perfect. I need to buy one for Emma,” Paul grabbed Bill’s arm to stop him walking on ahead him. 

“What? A-?” Bill snickered, giving Paul a disbelieving look. “Are you serious? That’s what I used with Alice when she was a little girl to make sure she ate all her vegetables and went to bed at night and did all her homework. If you get Emma one of those she’ll kill you.” 

“I know,” Paul drew in a breath between his teeth, drawing out his speech. “But it’ll be so funny and so good.” He reached to the shelf. “Do you think she’d be mad?” Paul gave Bill a glance, knowing he was going to buy it whether Bill let him or not. 

“Paul, she’ll kill you if you bring that home for her.”

“I’m gonna do it anyways.” Paul slipped one off the shelf and turned on his heels towards the check out.

———————————————————

“Emma!” Paul called out as he came in through the front door. “I grabbed you something from the store!” He tried not to laugh as he spoke, finding it only harder to fight back a teasing grin as Emma met him in the living room, eyeing the bag in his hand. 

“You’re hiding something from me,” Emma stated almost immediately. “What is it?”

“Don’t be mad okay?“

Emma’s eyes slitted as they tried to work out what was in the bag. “What’s in there, Paul?” She questioned, her arm darting out to grab the bag. She snatched it from his grip but didn’t dare look inside. “Are you going to regret buying it if I see what it is?” 

“Is that a threat?”

“Does it need to be?” Emma shot him a glare before dipping one hand into the bag and slowly drawing it out again.

Paul couldn’t wait to see the look on her face, but he did have a healthy fear of the consequences.

Emma’s eyes widened in surprise as she withdrew her present from the bag, they skimmed left to right to left to right as if she had to double take what she was reading. Eventually her jaw dropped and she took in one loud, deep breath. “I’m hoping this isn’t the surprise, Paul,” she gritted her teeth in warning. 

“You don’t like it?” He laughed. 

“Merit awards,” Emma had to read it a third time. “This is a merit reward chart.”

“Well I figured it’d be really great to keep track of your sleep and your eating and everything,” Paul suggesting, becoming increasingly nervous considering the joke didn’t land quite as he had hoped. 

“So you’ll give me a star when I eat my vegetables and go to bed by ten?” She blinked, unable to look away from the chart as if she still didn’t believe it existed.   
“You’ll give me a star if I what-“ she read through the list. “If I get dressed on my own and I do my homework?” 

“Well I mean it was meant for a kid but we could workshop it couldn’t we?” 

“Oh my god, I sorta need one for Hidgens.” Emma bit down on her thumb.

“Hah. Probably. After some changes though, I don’t suppose he does homework anymore,” he scratched the back of his neck anxiously. “But he could probably be enticed by a gold star and some rewards, right?” 

Emma paused, her eyes meeting Paul’s for the first time. “Gold stars?” 

“Well yeah, you put one on for everything you do. Then when you get a certain amount you get like a new pen or a lollipop or whatever. I had one and I saved up for a bike.”

“Oh?” Emma nodded, her eyes running over the chart again. “Hypothetically, how many points would I need if I were to ask for a dog?” 

“A dog?” Paul repeated. “Wow, I don’t know, two hundred?” 

Emma scanned the reward chart before dumping it on the couch and racing off to her bedroom. 

“Where are you going?” Paul called.

“I’m getting to bed before ten!” 

———————————————————

“The house is suspiciously tidy, and I don’t like it,” Paul announced as he entered the front door, immediately feeling a difference. 

“I’m glad you noticed!” Emma appeared from the kitchen, looking a bit worn out but excited overall. “I washed the dishes and I ate a healthy lunch and I swept the floor and took all the cups out from the bedroom and I did all the laundry. That’s gotta be worth a few gold stars right?” 

“If I knew you wanted a dog this badly I’d have milked it a little more,” he drew a finger across the windowsill, inspecting its dust-free surface. “You’ve done the house top to bottom somehow.” 

“Well I want that dog, Paul,” she said firmly. “Put my stickers up.” She raced after him as he trudged over to the fridge. “You’re already on like...” he paused to count. 

“Seventy seven,” she informed him. “It’s going to be a chihuahua just so you know.” 

Paul pressed his hand to his forehead. “Wow, in for a penny, in for a pound I guess. Jeez, I’m gonna have to go out and buy more gold starts again.”

Emma hopped up excitedly. “Buy a lot. I’m getting that dog, man.”   
———————————————————

“I don’t know how, but now that Emma’s doing so great I’m suddenly not great at all,” Paul rubbed his tired eyes. He didn’t think Emma being on her best behaviour would be so taxing. 

“It sounds like a seesaw,” Bill suggested. 

“Yeah. Only one of you can be healthy at a time,” Ted chuckled. “So who’ll it be? Her or you?” 

He yawned, not up for Ted’s trickery today. “Well, I’m sure I can adjust. She’s just been like, extra spritely lately. I can’t even go get my coffee from her anymore because she’ll always make a big deal about why she deserves her next star. It was cute at first but a couple weeks it it’s just...” he didn’t know the right word. “Draining?”

“I don’t see what the problem is!” Charlotte frowned. “What’s wrong?” 

“It’s just the nagging, I guess. I really have to be on top of my game so she doesn’t feel like she’s being cheated out of her work,” he started with his example in hopes of not seeming too irrational. “She woke me up from a nap just to give her a point for washing the dishes while I was asleep, she’s just a little too enthusiastic.”

Charlotte giggled, a giddy smile on her face. “Oh well you should enjoy it while it lasts. Once she gets that dog you won’t be getting nearly as much attention!” She joked.

“I always have to stop by the store after work to get more stickers, they only come in sheets of ten! But I don’t want to overbuy because I know she’ll get bored halfway through!”

“I warned you about buying it, Paul,” Bill shrugged apologetically, patting his shoulder. “You don’t get bored of a dog,” Bill shook his head. “Oh Alice used to badger me all the time as a child, it was impossible to get her off my case. Who doesn’t love a pet?” 

Charlotte nodded frantically. “Just go buy two hundred stickers then, if Sam let me I would buy another cat without a doubt!”

“Stickers are expensive though, they’re a dollar a sheet and that’s a lot of money!” He complained, not bothering to do the math in his head. He would have to look into something online maybe.

“Oh,” Melissa spoke up for the first time in that conversation, standing up. “I’ll be right back.” She left her lunch on the table, hopping off. 

”Just cave and buy her the dog now,” Ted advised with a sly laugh. “Save yourself the money and the energy.”

“Oh yes I don’t know if she will stop,” Charlotte agreed, tearing off parts of her sandwich to eat in small bites. “You know Emma better than us, but we still know she’s stubborn. Nothing is getting in the way of her and a puppy.”

“Mm,” Ted clicked his tongue. “You’ve started a very dangerous game, you can’t stop it now unless you call it all off.”

“You know, maybe I’ll just say- I’ll just say-“ he had to plan his sentence out in his head first. “Let’s cancel this whole merit thing, the stars are too expensive anyways. Maybe she’ll drop it all together, forget about the dog.” 

His friends gave him skeptical looks, but he thought it might work. It was about the stars to her, if she couldn’t get the stars she probably wouldn’t feel like it was valid enough, and she hated wasting money too.

“I have returned!” Melissa announced, pushing the door back open. “Here you are, Paul,” she laid a sticker sheet down on the table. “I keep them for my planner, but you can have them for now!” 

He stared at them, deadpan. There went that excuse.

“Huh? These are the right ones, right? You can take all the stickers you want!” She assured him with a smile, sitting back down. She clearly wasn’t reading the room as she continued on eating her lunch. “Oh, here you are.” She paused, taking a sticker off to put it on Paul’s hand. “That’s for all your good work already!”

Paul took the sheet into his hands. They were the right ones, and there weren’t many but enough to keep him going for a while, anyways. While his other friends could sympathise with his reasons for not wanting a dog, Melissa probably wanted it just as badly as Emma, just so she could come over and pat it. She wouldn’t let him say no, and if she did she would snitch to Emma. No backing out now. 

He gave her a very forced smile, tucking the stickers into his jacket pocket and speaking through gritted teeth. “Why, thanks, Melissa.”   
———————————————————

“Alright. Seven more stickers. You’re just cleaning this chart right up huh?” He wasn’t too happy as he peeled the stickers off their sheets onto the board. 

“Yeah man. You should give me more tasks that I can get done during the day!” She asked, watching intently to make sure he did in fact put up her seven stickers. “I’ll handle the dishes tonight and be in bed early, just put up the rest of my points for the day now.”

Paul’s fingers sort of hurt from all the stickers he had been peeling off lately. “No. Not until you actually do them, Em,” he told her firmly. Last night she had pulled this stunt and he had forgotten he had given her points out and gave her a second round. Tricky.

“Ah. Worth a shot. Well, I’ll be on it, don’t you worry.”

That actually did make him worry. She was still so eager. “It’s still gonna be like a month before you hit 100, even if you do them all every single day,” he advised her, hoping it would put things into perspectives and slow her down or shake her off all together.

“Oh! Really? I thought it’d be way longer haha!” She laughed, collecting the dishes from the dinner table to start on. 

Maybe she was too hard a worker. 

“It’s a good thing I’m getting into the habit, you know.” She washed off a plate in the sink to prepare it for the dishwasher. “Do you know it takes 21 days to create a habit?” She added.

He gulped. If he didn’t stop her soon she never would. He had to tell her now. “Hey. You know, these stickers,” he picked them up, slapping his hand with the sheet. “They’re kinda pricey.” 

“Don’t tip me so much at work then,” she shut him down immediately, her tone closed to show she was not going to start arguing about it. “Buy stickers instead.”

“Well. I mean. I don’t wanna look like a jerk for not tipping though,” he continued. “Maybe we-“

“Who cares what everyone else is thinking? No one is looking at how much you tip.” She shook her head, refusing to hear that idea.

He held his breath. Maybe he should try again later, but maybe he wouldn’t have the guts later. And he’d be another couple dollars wasted. “It’s really great that you’re developing healthy habits, Emma,” he took a new approach.

“Mhm! Yep. Who would’ve thought a chart would start keeping me in order.” She was already playing mind games. It had nothing to do with the chart, it was the promise of a dog.

“Look,” he took in one deep breath. “Maybe we should just cancel this whole thing and I’ll let you cash in the points you have already for something once we finish this last sheet of stickers?” It would get them to that twenty one day mark and then Emma would already have those habits if what she had said was true. 

“Oh, that’s almost two hundred. I’ll just go get another sticker sheet. Problem solved?” That was some quick math, all while her hands were busy with the dishes, she wasn’t even looking over her shoulder at him. Maybe that was for the best with how stressed he was getting.

“Emma, you know, this is about the habits, right?” He tried once more. “Not about the prize at the end.” 

She listened, thoughtfully, he hoped. She didn’t add anything to the conversation but she stopped sloshing about the water in the sink. 

“It’s a learning experience,” he continued, aware of the blessing of her attention right now. “It’s for you, really. I’m just helping you out!” 

Slowly, the sound at the sink picked up again as she placed a pan aside. 

“You know? Like, haven’t you been feeling so well rested lately? And less stressed? What would Hidgens say?”

“Something about intrinsic motivation,” Emma filled in for him. “Or at least a secondary motivator.” 

“Yeah!” He didn’t understand, but it sounded science-y. “I more meant to say how proud he would be with your work lately!”

She put another dish aside, nodding hesitantly as she plunged the last pan into the water. 

“I just don’t think I would be a good boyfriend,” he thought he had a point now. “If you were just being healthy because I was offering you a reward, you know? Then if I went away you would stop. And I just want you to truly take care of yourself, build good habits huh? Let’s just call the whole chart off, right?” 

She didn’t reply right away, but he could tell she was thinking about it, drafting a well thought out and reasonable response in her head certainly. 

He waited eagerly, thinking was always a good sign. She must be weighing it out, and at least that meant she had seen his side of the argument. Maybe she really had developed some healthy habits. 

“Paul?” She called his name to see if he was still listening as she balanced the final dish on the drying rack.

“Yes, Emma?” He leant in. “You know, hard work is it’s own reward!” He was quite proud of that closing statement. 

“I finished the dishes,” she said instead, pointing a finger at the chart. 

The breath he was holding in his lungs came out in a disappointed sigh. “You want your star?”

“Mhm,” she nodded, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. “And I’m heading off to bed now, so I want that on time point too,” she added, picking up her phone off the table to head down the hallway. 

He held a hand to his eyes in defeat, maybe he should’ve listened when his friends warned him she was stubborn.

“Hard work is its own reward,” he heard her scoff below her breath as she left. “Nah. I still want a dog.”


End file.
